[4] Captain Gaddafi was promoted to the rank of colonel, and was recognized as both chairman of the RCC as well as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, becoming the de facto head of state.

[6] Although the RCC was theoretically a collegial body that operated through discussion and consensus building, from the start it was dominated by the opinions and decisions of Gaddafi,[7] although some of the others attempted to constrain what they saw as his excesses.

[10] All of them were young men, from (typically rural) working and middle-class backgrounds, and none had university degrees; in this way they were all distinct from the wealthy, highly educated conservatives who had previously governed the country.

[7] Monarchists and members of Idris' Senussi clan were removed from Libya's political world and armed forces; Gaddafi believed that this elite were opposed to the will of the Libyan people and needed to be expunged.

Gaddafi announced that it would bring true democracy with all participating, eliminate class distinctions and form a new socialist ideology based on Islam, rejecting Marxism.

[17] After Libya was converted into the "(Great) Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" in 1977, the remaining members of the RCC formed the apex of the "revolutionary sector" that oversaw the government.

As a result, although Gaddafi held no formal governmental post after 1979, he continued to have the most important role in the government of the country until his overthrow and killing in the First Libyan Civil War in 2011.